Eileen R Gibney

University College Dublin | UCD · Institute of Food & Health

Bovine dairy foods provide several essential nutrients. Fermented bovine dairy foods contain additional compounds, increasing their potential to benefit gastrointestinal health. This review explores the effects of dairy consumption on the gut microbiome and symptoms in gastrointestinal disease cohorts. Human subjects with common gastrointestinal di...

Background Dietary intake assessment is an integral part of addressing suboptimal dietary intakes. Existing food-based methods are time-consuming and burdensome for users to report the individual foods consumed at each meal. However, ease of use is the most important feature for individuals choosing a nutrition or diet app. Intakes of whole meals c...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide, and is commonly associated with modifiable risk factors (1). Most studies to date examining link between food intake and risk of CVD, have focused on modulation of plasma cholesterol concentrations (total cholesterol (TC), LDL-C)(2). However, recent studies suggest LDL particle s...

Recent work has focused on understanding the link between diet quality and environmental impact, however it is also important to consider the role food processing plays in this relationship. Using model meal plans, this paper examines the link between nutrient content, environmental impact, and processing. Four distinct meal plans were considered –...

Branded food databases (BFDs) are used to monitor changes in nutrition composition as a result of reformulation and innovation of pre-packed foods. There is no established BFD with market wide coverage of pre-packed foods within and across food categories in Ireland. To address this gap, we aimed to pilot a BFD for reformulation monitoring in Irela...

Background Research on dairy consumption in China is lacking, however, some evidence has demonstrated significant changes in recent years, with a reported increase in the overall consumption of dairy products. To fully understand these changes, a systematic review was conducted to examine reported dairy intakes and differences between dairy consump...

Discourse on the relationship between food production, healthy eating and sustainability has become increasingly prominent and controversial in recent years. Research groups often take one perspective when reporting on sustainable diets, and several often neglect considerations for the multiple aspects that make a diet truly sustainable, such as cu...

The effects of the consumption of an extract of the brown seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum (BSW) on postprandial glucose and insulin responses to white bread were investigated in an acute, randomized, double-blind, three-arm, crossover, controlled trial in healthy, normoglycemic subjects. Sixteen subjects were administered either control white bread (50...

BACKGROUND Dietary intake assessment is an integral part of addressing suboptimal dietary intakes. Existing food-based methods are time-consuming and burdensome for users to report the individual foods consumed at each meal. However, ease of use is the most important feature for individuals choosing a nutrition or diet app. Intakes of whole meals c...

The effects of the consumption of an extract of the brown seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum (BSW) on postprandial glucose and insulin response to white bread were investigated in an acute, randomized, double-blind, three-arm, crossover, controlled trial in healthy, normoglyacemic subjects. Sixteen subjects were administrated either control white bread (5...

Purpose Studies show that dairy fat consumed in the form of cheese reduce LDL-cholesterol concentration (LDL-c) compared to butter and mechanistic suggestions include the calcium content of cheese leading to enhanced faecal fat excretion. The aim of this study was to test the effect of varying the calcium content within a cheese, on faecal fat excr...

Poor diet is responsible for a quarter of European non-communicable disease (NCD)-related deaths. The reformulation of sugar, salt, and saturated fat in processed packaged foods offers an opportunity to reduce consumption of nutrients of concern and also support a reduction in energy intake. To date, there have been no publications measuring progre...

Background Intake of dairy fat within the matrix of cheese lowered circulating LDL cholesterol concentration to a greater extent than the same components consumed separately as butter, protein, and calcium. However, circulating LDL cholesterol is not indicative of concentration or size of LDL particles (LDL-P), which are recognized as more sensitiv...

Purpose High-fat and low-fibre discretionary food intake and FTO genotype are each associated independently with higher risk of obesity. However, few studies have investigated links between obesity and dietary patterns based on discretionary food intake, and the interaction effect of FTO genotype are unknown. Thus, this study aimed to derive dietar...

The EAT–Lancet Commission devised a sustainable reference diet with the aim of reducing the incidence of non-communicable diseases and mortality globally while improving food system sustainability. The extent to which the reference diet supports cognitive function across the life course, however, has not yet been evaluated. This Review assesses the...

Elevated intakes of saturated fatty acids (SFA) can adversely affect serum cholesterol levels. Dairy fat contains ~60% SFA, prompting healthy eating guidelines to recommend low-fat dairy. Physiological, and environmental factors influence inter-individual variance in response to food consumption. Evidence exploring the dairy matrix has differing ef...

Background Examination of meal intakes can elucidate the role of individual meals or meal patterns in health not evident by examining nutrient and food intakes. To date, meal-based research has been limited to focus on population rather than individual intakes, without considering portions or nutrient content when characterizing meals. Objectives...

Older adults (≥65 years) are the fastest growing population group. Thus, ensuring nutritional well-being of the 'over-65s' to optimise health is critically important. Older adults represent a diverse population - some are fit and healthy, others are frail and many live with chronic conditions. Up to 78% of older Irish adults living independently ar...

Background In response to growing needs for the integration of heterogeneous data on food and nutrition security (FNS), and the current fragmentation of interoperability resources, the ‘FNS-Cloud project’ aims to develop a cross-domain, interoperable ‘food-cloud’ that integrates diverse FNS data. Currently, there is insufficient guidance on how to...

Globally, the number of minority ethnic groups in high-income countries is increasing. However, despite this demographic change, most national food consumption surveys are not representative of ethnically diverse populations. In consequence, many ethnic minorities’ dietary intakes are underreported, meaning that accurate analysis of food intake and...

Background Malnutrition negatively impacts on health, quality of life and disease outcomes in older adults. The reported factors associated with, and determinants of malnutrition, are inconsistent between studies. These factors may vary according to differences in rate of ageing. This review critically examines the evidence for the most frequently...

Lipid bioactivity is a result of direct action and the action of lipid mediators including oxylipins, endocannabinoids, bile acids and steroids. Understanding the factors contributing to biological variation in lipid mediators may inform future approaches to understand and treat complex metabolic diseases. This research aims to determine the contri...

Genes, sex, age, diet, lifestyle, gut microbiome, and multiple other factors affect human metabolomic profiles. Understanding metabolomic variation is critical in human nutrition research as metabolites that are sensitive to change versus those that are more stable might be more informative for a particular study design. This study aims to identify...

Background: Language and communication have an impact on how a clinical condition is treated and experienced, from both the health care professional (HCP) and patient perspective. Malnutrition is prevalent among community-dwelling older adults, yet perceptions of patient understanding of the term malnutrition to date remain underexplored. Objecti...

Introduction: Carbohydrate intake and physical activity are related to glucose homeostasis, both being influenced by individual genetic makeup. However, the interactions between these 2 factors, as affected by genetics, on glycaemia have been scarcely reported. Objective: We focused on analysing the interplay between carbohydrate intake and phys...

Abstract Background The effect of personalised nutrition advice on discretionary foods intake is unknown. To date, two national classifications for discretionary foods have been derived. This study examined changes in intake of discretionary foods and beverages following a personalised nutrition intervention using these two classifications. Methods...

Objectives Most dietary guidelines recommend saturated fat (SFA) intakes to be < 10% of total energy intake, since SFA increase low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c) levels, a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, within LDL-c, small, dense LDL particles are more strongly related to CVD risk than large buoyant particles...

Objectives Foodbook24 is a web-based, self-administered 24-h dietary recall tool initially developed for the Irish adult population. However, the application of this tool to the Chinese population is limited. This study aims to describe the development of Foodbook24 for Chinese population and conduct user evaluations of the developed Foodbook24. M...

Objectives To develop Foodbook24, an online dietary recall tool, for use among various population groups in Ireland and compare its use to traditional dietary recall methods Methods The existing food list within Foodbook24 was expanded to include foods frequently consumed by Polish and Brazilian adults. Common foods consumed by the Irish populatio...

Objectives This study aimed to examine changes in intake of discretionary foods and beverages following a personalized nutrition intervention using two national classifications for discretionary foods. Methods Participants were recruited into a 6-month RCT across seven European countries (Food4Me) and were randomized to receive generalized dietary...

Objectives Recent evidence has demonstrated beneficial effects of dairy fat consumption on serum cholesterol levels when consumed in the form of cheese1. However, inter-individual variance in response to food consumption is known to affect the risk of diet-related diseases2,3. The extent of this variability and the determinants of response to dairy...

Background & Aim Protein-energy malnutrition is under-recognised in the community despite being common in older adults due to physiological and social changes which are often compounded by chronic disease. This qualitative study aimed to explore the opinions of healthcare professionals (HCPs) working in the primary care and community settings about...

Background Early applications of metabolomics in nutrition and health research identified associations between dietary patterns and metabolomic profiles. Twin studies show that diet-related phenotypes and diet-associated metabolites are influenced by genes. However, studies have not examined whether diet–metabolite associations are explained by gen...

The inhibition of the α-amylase and α-glucosidase activity facilitates the maintenance of circulating glucose levels by decreasing the rate of blood sugar absorption. Existing enzyme inhibitors such as acarbose, miglitol, and voglibose are used for inhibiting the activity of these enzymes, however, alternative solutions are required to avoid the si...

Background Oral nutritional supplements (ONS) are recommended for patients at risk of malnutrition or malnourished. Appropriate ONS prescribing requires regular monitoring to assess its continued requirement. Previous research identified long-term ONS prescriptions (>6 months) without review, with 70% of these influenced by social factors. Aim To...

There is a scarcity of dietary intake research focusing on the intake of whole meals rather than on the nutrients and foods of which those meals are composed. This growing area of research has recently begun to utilize advanced statistical techniques to manage the large number of variables and permutations associated with these complex meal pattern...

Type II diabetes is considered the most common metabolic disorder in the developed world and currently affects about one in ten globally. A therapeutic target for the management of type II diabetes is the inhibition of α- glucosidase, an essential enzyme located at the brush border of the small intestinal epithelium. The inhibition of α-glucosidase...

NICE guidelines recommend the use of oral nutritional supplements (ONS) for patients at risk of malnutrition or who are already malnourished. A fundamental component of appropriate ONS prescribing is regular monitoring to assess the continued requirement. Therefore, patients prescribed ONS should be reviewed every 3 months or every 6 months if they...

NICE guidelines recommend the use of oral nutritional supplements (ONS) for patients at risk of malnutrition or who are already malnourished. Patients prescribed ONS should be reviewed every 3 months or every 6 months if they have longer term ONS requirements. Previous research in Ireland identified a large number of patients prescribed ONS for mor...

Malnutrition or undernutrition, arising from a deficiency of energy and protein intake, occurs commonly among community-dwelling individuals in developed countries. Elderly people are predisposed to develop malnutrition and recently published European data estimates the prevalence of elderly at risk of malnutrition in the community at 8.5%. Despite...

Malnutrition is a significant contributor to morbidity and mortality, particularly in individuals >65 years. 1 In Europe, the percentage of the population aged >65 years is expected to rise from 19% in 2015 to 28% by 2050. 2 The prevalence of malnutrition in the community is approximately 2.8% but is higher in individuals attending primary healthca...

Malnutrition affects approximately 3% of community dwelling older adults and 11% of those receiving homecare help. 1,2 In Ireland, general practitioners (GPs) report feeling unsupported in managing malnutrition. 3 This study aimed to determine the preferences of healthcare professionals (HCPs) for the delivery and content of a malnutrition educatio...

Background & aims Understanding how older adults perceive their nutritional needs and malnutrition risk is important to inform strategies to improve prevention and management of the condition. This scoping review aimed to identify, characterize and summarize the findings from studies analysing community-living older adults’ opinions and perceptions...

Milk and dairy foods are naturally rich sources of a wide range of nutrients, and when consumed according to recommended intakes, contribute essential nutrients across all stages of the life cycle. Seminal studies recommendations with respect to intake of saturated fat have been consistent and clear: limit total fat intake to 30% or less of total d...

Background: Targeted nutrition is defined as dietary advice tailored at a group level. Groups known as metabotypes can be identified based on individual metabolic profiles. Metabotypes have been associated with differential responses to diet, which support their use to deliver dietary advice. We aimed to optimise a metabotype approach to deliver t...

Although seafood is considered to be an important part of a balanced diet, many national food consumption surveys suggest that seafood is not consumed in sufficient amounts. As consumers are moving to diversify their diet from animal-based protein(1), it is important to understand the factors influencing consumption of marine foods. This review aim...

Milk and dairy foods are naturally rich sources of a wide range of nutrients, and when consumed according to recommended intakes contribute essential nutrients across all stages of the life cycle. Since then, seminal studies recommendations with respect to intake of saturated fat have been consistent and clear; limit total fat intake to 30% or less...

BACKGROUND There are many constraints to conducting national food consumption surveys for the purposes of national nutrition surveillance including cost, time and participant burden. Validated Web-based dietary assessment technologies offer a potential solution to many if these constraints. OBJECTIVE This study investigated the feasibility of usin...

Background There are many constraints to conducting national food consumption surveys for national nutrition surveillance, including cost, time, and participant burden. Validated web-based dietary assessment technologies offer a potential solution to many of these constraints. Objective This study aims to investigate the feasibility of using a prev...

Introduction Healthy eating recommendations advise eating two portions of fish per week. Although seafood consumption has doubled globally over the last 50 years there is currently very little data on seafood consumption in Ireland. It is important to know what is being consumed by a population for nutritional and food safety purposes. The aim of t...

Prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus has significantly increased in the last three decades and currently affects about 1 in 10 globally. A common therapeutic target for type 2 diabetes is α- glucosidase, an essential enzyme located at the brush border of the small intestinal epithelium. The inhibition of α-glucosidase results in a reduced digesti...

Malnutrition, arising from a deficiency of energy and protein intake, occurs commonly among community-dwelling individuals. Oral nutritional supplements (ONS) are an effective method of managing malnutrition if prescribed for patients who are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. However, previous research indicates that inappropriate prescribin...

Introduction Little is known about the factors which influence seafood consumption in Irish adults at present. This systematic review will serve the purpose of reviewing published literature examining influences on seafood consumption to provide a basis for a larger project being carried out in UCD - the Seafood Consumption and Risk Exposure Study...

Protein-energy malnutrition, or undernutrition, arising from a deficiency of energy and protein intake, can occur in developed countries both in hospitalised patients and in the primary care/community setting. Oral nutritional supplements (ONS) are an effective method of managing malnutrition if prescribed for patients who are malnourished or at ri...

Over half of the Irish population is overweight or obese. The Obesity Policy and Action Plan 2016–2025 will set reformulation targets for fat, saturated fat and sugar in Ireland and review progress. In 2016, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland undertook a cross-sectional market scan of yoghurts to evaluate the energy, fat, saturated fat and sugar...

Flavanols intake positively influences several cardiometabolic risk factors in humans. However, the specific molecular mechanisms of action of flavanols, in terms of gene regulation, in the cell types relevant to cardiometabolic disease have never been systematically addressed. On this basis, we conducted a systematic literature review and a compre...

Little is known about who would benefit from internet-based personalised nutrition (PN) interventions. This study aimed to evaluate the characteristics of participants who achieved greatest improvements (i.e. benefit) in diet, adiposity and biomarkers following an internet-based PN intervention. Adults (n=1607) from seven European countries were re...

Food phytochemicals are increasingly considered to play a key role in the cardiometabolic health effects of plant foods. However, the heterogeneity in responsiveness to their intake frequently observed in clinical trials can hinder the beneficial effects of these compounds in specific subpopulations. A range of factors, including genetic background...

Background & aims Malnutrition or undernutrition, arising from a deficiency of energy and protein intake, occurs commonly among community-dwelling individuals in developed countries. Once identified, malnutrition can be effectively treated in the majority of cases with dietary advice and the prescription of oral nutritional supplements (ONS) for pa...

Purpose Evidence exists regarding the beneficial effects of diets rich in plant-based foods regarding the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases. These plant-based foods are an exclusive and abundant source of a variety of biologically active phytochemicals, including polyphenols, carotenoids, glucosinolates and phytosterols, with known health-prom...

Background A healthy diet and optimal lifestyle choices are amongst the most important actions for the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases. Despite this, it appears difficult to convince consumers to select more nutritious foods. Furthermore, the development and production of healthier foods do not always lead to economic profits for the agro-fo...

Background Nutrient intakes are known to be poorer among pregnant women with raised body mass index (BMI) than those with a healthy BMI. While meal patterns have the potential to influence obstetric, metabolic and anthropometric measures for mother and infant, limited data exists regarding meal patterns among pregnant women with raised BMI. Aim To...

Personalised nutrition allows individual differences in dietary, lifestyle, anthropometry, phenotype and/or genomic profile to be used to direct specific dietary advice. For personalised nutrition advice to be effective both sides need to be considered; firstly, that factors influencing variation in response to dietary intervention are identified a...

Plant-based diets rich in bioactive compounds such as polyphenols have been shown to positively modulate the risk of cardiometabolic (CM) diseases. The inter-individual variability in the response to these bioactives may affect the findings. This systematic review aimed to summarize findings from existing randomized clinical trials (RCTs) evaluatin...

Clustering of adherence to personalised dietary recommendations and changes in healthy eating index within the Food4Me study – CORRIGENDUM - Volume 22 Issue 11 - Katherine M Livingstone, Carlos Celis-Morales, Jose Lara, Clara Woolhead, Clare B O’Donovan, Hannah Forster, Cyril FM Marsaux, Anna L Macready, Rosalind Fallaize, Santiago Navas-Carretero,...

Introduction: This study tested the hypothesis that providing personalized nutritional advice and feedback more frequently would promote larger, more appropriate, and sustained changes in dietary behavior as well as greater reduction in adiposity. Study design: A 6-month RCT (Food4Me) was conducted in seven European countries between 2012 and 20...

Novel metabolomic profiling techniques combined with traditional biomarkers provide knowledge of mechanisms underlying metabolic health. Twin studies describe the impact of genes and environment on variation in traits. This study aims to identify relationships between traditional markers of metabolic health and the plasma metabolomic profile using...

Dietary choices affect personal health and environmental impacts, but little is known about the relation between these outcomes. Here we examine the intake-related health impacts and the food-production related impacts to ecosystems and human health by applying life cycle impact assessment methods to habitual diet data of 1457 European adults. We m...

Protein-energy malnutrition, or undernutrition, arising from a deficiency of energy and protein intake, can occur in developed countries both in hospitalized patients and in the primary care/community setting. Oral nutritional supplements (ONS) are an effective method of managing malnutrition if prescribed for patients who are malnourished or at ri...

The present study set out to explore the option of developing food portion size for nutritional labelling purposes using two European Union (EU) dietary surveys. The surveys were selected as they differed in (a) methodologies (food diary versus food frequency questionnaire), (b) populations (Irish National Adult Nutrition Survey (NANS) versus a sev...

Breakfast is considered to be one of the most important meals of the day. Its omission has been reported to be associated with increased disease risk, such as obesity, diabetes, and coronary heart disease, as well as unhealthy lifestyle and lower dietary quality. Using data from the National Adult Nutrition Survey (NANS)—a food consumption survey c...

The present study set out to explore the option of developing food portion size for nutritional labelling purposes using two European Union (EU) dietary surveys. The surveys were selected as they differed in (a) methodologies (food diary v food frequency questionnaire), (b) populations (Irish National Adult Nutrition Survey: NANS) versus a seven-co...

Older adults are at increased risk of malnutrition which is associated with poorer health, quality of life, and worse disease outcomes. This study identifies predictors of incident malnutrition using data from a sub-sample (n=1,841) of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). Participants were excluded if they were <65 years, missing BMI dat...

Aim Proteomics has the potential to enhance early identification of beta-cell dysfunction, in conjunction with monitoring the various stages of type 2 diabetes onset. The most routine method of assessing pancreatic beta-cell function is an oral glucose tolerance test, however this method is time consuming and carries a participant burden. The objec...

List of pathways related to the disposition index. Pathways obtained from pathway statistics using PathVisio software, using the curated WikiPathways directory. Sorted by number of differentially expressed proteins in pathway. P-value is permuted. Percentage of total gene products refers to % coverage of pathway by SOMAscan assay. (DOCX)

Scatterplots of proteins related to Disposition Index from Pearson’s correlation analysis (p ≤ 0.01). Protein concentrations displayed in relative fluorescence units (RFU’s). (DOCX)

The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis to assess the predictive ability of ability of the protein panel (17 proteins associated with the disposition index (p ≤ 0.01)), age, BMI, waist to hip ratio and fasting glucose, for classification of low and high disposition index values of MECHE participants (n = 30). Par scaling was used and r...

IL-17 signalling pathway obtained from WikiPathways displaying proteins significantly associated with beta-cell function measures. Green filled square: Up-regulated with increasing beta-cell functionRed filled square: Down-regulated with increasing beta-cell functionYellow Filled square: Measured but no association (DOCX)

Cell viability of BRIN-BD11 cells following treatment with different concentrations of IL-17F for 20 h (n = 4). Values are expressed as mean ± SD. No significant differences were observed. Sodium azide is the negative control. (DOCX)

Pearson’s correlation of proteins with beta-cell function/HOMA-IR. Results obtained from Pearson’s correlation analysis, with correlation coefficients and p ≤ 0.05 presented. (DOCX)

Linear regression analysis to determine a proteomic signature related to beta-cell function measures. Results obtained from stepwise linear regression analysis, with unstandardised beta coefficients and 95% confidence intervals. IL-17F; interleukin 17F, CRTAM; cytotoxic and regulatory t-cell adhesion molecule. (DOCX)

Pearson’s correlation of proteins with the disposition index. Results obtained from Pearson’s correlation analysis, with correlation coefficients and p ≤ 0.05 presented. (DOCX)